


a stone in her pocket

by yourlipsarered



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Spellwell - Freeform, this is...really sad you guys I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 20:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18977731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlipsarered/pseuds/yourlipsarered
Summary: Only a few get to say their lives were well lived. Zelda never thought she would be one of them, even as her hair remained as red as the autumn leaves of year’s past. But just as leaves fall to the soil, so did the lover she once knew.A quick look at Zelda and Mary’s short but beautiful life together.





	a stone in her pocket

Zelda never thought about death. To a witch, death is but a distant siren call, a destiny of no consequence, an afterthought. Time had always been at her fingertips – to be started and stopped on a whim. One day, carriages transported gold clad monarchs to castles. The next, voices resounding from tin boxes to warn when to take shelter in bunkers. Evolution was but an exciting book unfolding itself before her very eyes. History is a long memory she knows like an old friend, whereas others can only live vicariously through sthe books that claim to know it.

It can be mundane at times, the witch had to admit. A few dozen years here and there are wasted on boring people of no consequence or learning skills that would be no use to her down the road. There were silent years lived out in fields of trees, roaring years lived in a decade that born the party culture. Days that felt like years, centuries that felt like mere minutes. Time was nonexistent, nor, at times, was the witch’s excitement for life.

And then came Mary. 

Of course, the rollercoaster ride that preceded their romance never bore a dull moment either. Nothing about the _Sabrina ordeal_ was mundane at all – it was gripping and quite dangerous, even. Every second could’ve meant the family’s extinction. The Spellman name was unlikely to make it out alive save for it being a memory in the coven’s mind, or a legend in the religion’s never ending list of martyrs that remain whispers inside their sacred church. It brought about painful trauma that Zelda brought with her like a heavy stone in her pocket which would either grow heavier or lighter depending on the day. Nonetheless, it was strangely invigorating for the aged witch; as much as she didn’t admit it, the power struggle and the risk that ran with it had sparked a fire that was long asleep in her.

So who could’ve blamed the witch for expecting the following years that came thereafter to be bound to have relapsed into nothing less than _Boring_ , despite new challenges that came her way: a church re-brand and title change notwithstanding.

Never did the High Priestess expect the return of Mary Wardwell to have made all that time she’d lived and the struggles she’d surpassed like the most dull time spent alive.

It all began when she’d found herself housing a soft spot for the mortal, who was so frail and helpless after the months she’d lost. Quite frankly, the teacher had been a mess. Tears filled every waking moment, nightmares plaguing her whenever she’d close her eyes. Identifying with it, Zelda grew fiercely protective. It started with comfortable silence, the mere presence of the other warming the unforgiving air around them. She held her hand (quite to her own surprise as well), made her tea with honey the way she’d gradually learned Mary liked it. Whenever the brunette’s breathing would change, or if she’d been staring at a distance for too long, Zelda would bring her back with soft coos in the form of her name. The beginning was, dare she say, the most genuine friendship she’d allowed herself to cultivate. And with a mortal, most especially. Later, she’d learn the only person that could calm Mary’s most violent storms was herself – as admitted by the brunette herself, through a confession in the pitch black night on the Spellman Mortuary porch over a cup of tea; Mary wore an indecipherable expression that night, one that almost looked like fear.

But merely friendship it was not. Hilda had to slap her in the face with the realization. Zelda quite literally would’ve slapped her back if she didn’t admit she was right. When did care graduate to love? The witch, as cerebral and certain as she was of herself, could not quite grasp its magic. Maybe that’s how true love worked; it disguises in plain sight, and makes itself known all too suddenly when one least expects. Something at the distance, an afterthought, that turned time into trivial fragments once recognized. Suddenly, nothing else existed but Mary.

Through tears and giggles, feelings are confessed and requited. Relief washes over the two women, quickly followed by the pent up desire to _be_ together that lingering glances and hand holding couldn’t appropriately express. At least not anymore. Soft lips on hers made time stop the first time they kissed. Zelda realizes she’d never seen anything as beautiful as a smiling Mary mere inches from her face– not even the rising of the sun in glorious Italy nor the fields of white when it first falls every winter she’d bore witness to over the centuries. Blushes on her lover’s cheeks pink as the flowers of spring summoned the very season itself.

When Mary looked up at the sky, Zelda could only wish she could bring it down to her beloved for the sole purpose of seeing her wonderful blue eyes match it. When fingers tangled in each other’s, so did the waves crash to meet the sand. When fingers entered her lover, and a sheen of sweat enveloped them both, the very wind stopped so as not to interrupt. As agitated volcanoes rumbled in their repressed state, so did the moans that escaped Mary when Zelda coaxed the liquid fire of arousal from her. There was a passion in the couple that even nature could not match, nor their natures as witch or mortal could prevent. Being Mary’s was a title she wore as proudly as she did ‘High Priestess.’  

There was Mary, there was only Mary. For a time.

Then three days arrived that threatened to end time itself. “A witch? That’s ridiculous.” Why hadn’t she told her sooner? What would she have to gain by withholding such vital information from her? They were in too deep for the revelation not to cut lethally. Mary had disappeared from Zelda’s life for three days. Or was it three years? Centuries? The witch couldn’t tell – the ordeal was worse than cursed conscious sleep. Zelda had everything to lose until her beloved knocked at her door, flew into her arms and never again threatened to leave. “It could be fun,” sweet Mary proclaims. And fun it was, even as the witch didn’t stop crying thereafter.

Just as a teacher would take an apprentice under her wing, so did Zelda journey with Mary into the world of witchcraft. There was a universe of things to show her; admittedly, it scared the living hell out of the High Priestess. But Mary, now the student rather than the teacher, took everything in wonder. The glint in her blue eyes made Zelda melt into a puddle, and she was sure she’d never been in love until that very moment. Days were spent tinkering with levitation spells, some nights in mischievous fun behind closed doors that would make the very moon blush. It was no short of magic, Zelda would say, tricks and Latin aside. If it were possible, the brunette showed her a new sense of wonderment in the art she’d been practicing for years on end. 

That time felt all too short, but also able to span a lifetime. It was a paradox Zelda could not quite fathom, especially as her hair remained untouched by age, while the greys starting to pile up at the root of her lover’s head. All the same, Zelda cherished her Mary the way she always had. She held her hand, now clad in a golden ring symbolizing their lifelong union, she made her tea with honey. She would catch the tear by the corner of Mary’s eye when she’d look at her for too long, refusing to kiss the younger (or younger looking) woman one day when the sadness was too much. The wrinkles by her mouth were finer than any tree rings Zelda had ever ran her fingers against. Still, Mary was the most beautiful thing she’d seen in all her life, and it had been a long one. She could only hope Mary knew that. To Zelda, the blue in her eyes were untouched by time. They were the same ones as the first time she’d looked into them carefully, the day she’d said the three precious words – ones that Zelda could never imagine herself saying to anyone but Mary. “I love you, too,” Mary replies softly, knowingly.

As strong as Zelda claimed to be, nothing could’ve prepared her for what was to come even with the full knowledge that it would. The call at a distance that she’d never concerned herself over, the afterthought that disguised in the night in the form of realized nightmares came knocking at the gate – at Mary’s in particular. Nature suddenly rebelled against their union, reminding them that pain inevitably followed once rules are defied. All the elements that bind the lovers were the very things that tore them apart: time, nature, magic. None answered the call when death patiently waited around the corner.

Mary was at peace with it, just as her entire being brought peace to anything and anyone that came her way. But just as the teacher exuded tranquility, there was only angry angst from the redhead witch. Life was unfair, time is the one true enemy, never would she accept nature and its deceitful ways again. If magic couldn’t fix this, it was useless practice she’d dedicated her life to after all. Mary merely chuckled at her lover’s outbursts, luring her into an embrace to plant lingering kisses in her hair. “Zelda Spellman, don’t ever change.”

In the blink of an eye, she was gone. Peacefully, thankfully, in her own bed with her lover beside her. Zelda lay with her for as long as she could bear, hoping her tears that dampened the cold grey locks could somehow bring her back. How could time be so cruel? Life only took, didn’t it. It takes and takes and takes until Zelda had nothing left. All the strength she had left was spent on putting her to rest as she wished by the cottage in the woods she called home, with Hilda, Sabrina and Ambrose by the widow’s side. “You two lived a beautiful life together, Zelds. You should be proud,” her sister whispered amidst her trembling frame. It was the one thing she clung on to as years of grief engulfed the witch.

Again, life was back to its mundaneness.

Nothing but memories filled her head and heart, who was currently not a friend but an overbearing foe. The smell of her lover still lingered, the mingling of tears as they both found comfort in each other still left a sensation on her cheeks. It was too painful to watch the sun rise and set all too quickly when Mary couldn’t. The witch sobbed into her hands, wishing they were Mary’s instead. Zelda was sure this must’ve been what death was like, even as she lived and breathed.

“I miss her.” Zelda confesses to herself, in an empty room, mascara running and the sun about to sleep. “I miss her, I miss her, I miss her.” It took years to admit it, but the release of such a sentiment brought what resembled peace to her heart. Zelda missed her, and it’s what moved her to get up that day and read her newspaper as usual, back to her strict routine. Mary is now a memory, and she’d have to move on; maybe even attempt to live once more. Another stone to add to her already heavy pocket, only this one in particular didn’t pick a day to weigh the witch down. Still, Zelda would see the blue of Mary’s eyes in the sky.

No, Zelda Spellman did not think about death. Not anymore, anyway. She thought about life, and how beautiful a time she’d spend with Mary in hers however brief. As quickly as it went, it was theirs, and Zelda would carry her with her for the rest of the many days she has yet to spend.

**Author's Note:**

> title inspired by a quote from Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, that summed up grief to me beautifully.
> 
> "The weight of it, I guess. At some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under. And carry around--like a brick in your pocket. And you forget it every once in a while, but then you reach in for whatever reason and there it is: "Oh right. That." Which can be awful. But not all the time. Sometime's it kinda ... Not that you like it exactly, but it's what you have instead [of your son], so you don't wanna let go of it either. So you carry it around. And it doesn't go away, which is ... fine, actually."
> 
> thanks for reading, you guys! would love some comments and kudos if you'd like to leave some too :3


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